Colegio Mayor Elias Ahuja

The Colegio Mayor Elías Ahuja is a residence hall affiliated with the Complutense University of Madrid. It is for men, but from the 2026-27 academic year it will be co-educational. Opened on 6 November 1969, the Fundación Elías Ahúja owned the building until 2019. It entrusted the management and running of the hall to the Order of Saint Augustine, a religious institution that has run it since its opening and has owned it since 2019.

The building was designed by the architects Genaro Alas and Pedro Casariego in the University City, on a corner adjoining the area of the former Metropolitano stadium. It has capacity for 174 students in single rooms (one of them is a double), and costs 1,390 euros a month. This covers full board, laundry and room cleaning services.

Among the activities held regularly at this residence hall, its Festival Solidario de música (charity music festival) stands out, along with the plays staged by its theatre group "La Ratonera" and its debating society, which has earned several accolades. The complex has a library, an IT room, a photography room, an audiovisual room, a gymnasium, a theatre for 500 people, a television room, a chapel and a multi-sport court.

In October 2022, the Madrid Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation for a hate crime following a complaint filed by the Movimiento contra la Intolerancia over events that went viral. The Prosecutor's Office later dismissed the case after finding that no offence had been committed. A video posted on social media and filmed from the Colegio Mayor de Santa Mónica, located opposite, showed the moment misogynistic shouts were made by a student leaning out of his bedroom window, such as "Mónicas, you sluts. Get out of your burrows like rabbits. You're a bunch of nymphomaniac sluts. I promise you're all going to get laid at the capea. Come on, Ahúja!" After this, the blinds on all seven floors of the building were raised at once, and all the students began to shout and insult the women even more.

According to female students of the women's residence hall, this kind of behaviour has been normalised and recurrent for a decade, although they insisted it was an annual tradition in which they themselves took part. The students themselves issued a statement saying the video was taken out of context and gave a picture of sexism and misogyny that did not match reality, stressing that they had not felt offended and had taken part. For its part, the college management expelled the student behind the sexist shouts — a student from Mallorca known for displaying far-right ideology — for forty days, arguing that this was the maximum penalty possible under the internal regulations. The other participants were cleared of any punishment after apologising.